Saturday, April 19, 2008

Malaysia II

Feb 27th Wed. Like I said before, we are still at home and it is 1:30 PM. Waiting for one of our VYASA colleagues to show up and then Will go to city for more expedition ....

Well, Malay finally showed up at around 3 PM.

After offering warm welcome, we went to visit Jade Museum. Beautiful artwork but it turned out that it was a Business shop. Then we proceeded to Malaysian Art and Craft Complex. Well that turned out to be another business place. Nice display of Fashion Clothings and some crafts. Then we went to YOGA Studio, the real YOGA Business. There are supposed to nine such studios and they are really, really professionally maintained, promoting many varieties of YOGA with full schedule filling the whole day. In one day they have 12 to 19 classes per studeo. Wow! I have yet to see similar approach even in USA. This is a similar concept of JOY of YOGA , a franchise we were contemplating to promote VYASA YOGA at one time in USA. The whole forth floor of this high rise building was dedicated (wrong choice of word!) to YOGA studios. There must four or five studio-ooms in this floor and everyone had some 8 to 42 students. Their annual membership is 1400 Ringets and 45 RM for each class. They have professional counselors and promoters working full time. Imagine, nine places like this in one city. Our pictures will give you more details.

Then, we came to Shiradi SAI Center where we got another warm welcome to continue our third mini session on Pranayam after aarti. Some 100 devotees attended. They really felt comfortable with us and now they started feeling real closeness to us and looking for more personalized attention for their personal problems. The MC of the center reported the dramatic improvement in his sleep with one day practice. Niru taught one fellow Jal Neti for his allergy problem. Next day he reported dramatic help in one day.

Then Rajiv with his friend took us to his Uncle and aunt, very close friend of his mother. This was already close to 10 PM. They really extended hearty welcome. Masi (auntie) started serving all kinds of imported Chocolates and varieties of sweets and munchins. I could not hold myself suggesting: You know, in Gujarat, when we offer all these varieties of food, whatever is not gobbled up, we pack them for the guests ........" And she was extremely pleased to pack up lots of things against our respectful gestures of No's ... No wonder, we end up with more food than we started with even after one week of our tour!

Rajiv brought us to Duta Vista, or resort at around 11:30 PM.

Today we talked and walked and walked ..... again. But did not feel that exhausted ....

Feb 28th, Thursday:

Well, today we are going to take Rajiv out for Lunch to restoran (Restaurant) "Sangeeta". We got there around 2 PM. Nice south Indian Lunch. Then we went for shopping. We bought something special for our new special member of the family .... Also some moorties for SATSANG Patotsav 2009 (?). We arrived at Shiradi Center around 6 PM. We again received warmer welcome. Some people came Early for Diabetes and back problem. Allergy guys was thrilled with his success. Today, being Thursday, lot more than 100 devotees gathered. They had nice Bajans. We sang Chandra Shekharay Namah... ! Thanx to Niru for insistence. Then I presented the conclusion of Pranayama series. Was asked for 15 minutes of mini presentation as it was already 8:30 PM. It was already 30 minutes past due time for Mahaa-Prasaad. They also requested that they wanted to learn about reducing weight. I concluded at around 9:15 and the participants were very pleased to have this session. They listened with the rapt attention. Did not feel like rushing. Many had tears in their eyes expressing their gratitude. They conferred special blessings on me by offering Baba's garland and Niru with beautiful Shawl.

Quite a few came and tried o touch or feet with such an emotions of gratitude. And I remembered Dada JP Vaswani. He returned any gesture the same way. Very hard to tell not to do it but they did it anyway. Even their MC and maharaj did that. We asked them to offer hugs instead .... Very emotionally charged atmosphere .... We felt very blessed to have this gathering .... We offered to cut down our visit to Penang short and return on Sunday for 2 to three hours session on Complete YOGA. Many expressed their desire for our return next year for thorough YOGA Training ......

Well we will see what is in store .....

Again Rajiv brought us to our resort at around 11:30 PM.

Feb 29th Friday: The special day that comes every four years ....

Will be on the way to Penang pretty soon ..... It is 11:25 AM.... getting late as usual .... OM Shanih OM!